Film Director George Lucas famously said "sound is 50% of the film experience". Sound for media however has evolved much differently than the more unified approach taken by the producers of the pictures. This different approach has left a streamlined production path for visuals but a complex and expensive production path for sound. The Hollywood Reporter has identified some 350 different distribution versions were required for "Captain America: The Winter Soldier" release - most of the variations due to sound requirements.

Several dramatic changes are occurring in cinema exhibition with immersive sound the new buzzword. Ultra High Definition Television (UHDTV) looks to be the next step in home entertainment. The consumer is increasing their use of personal media devices, with headphones looking to be a major segment of the future.

This first-ever Future of Audio Entertainment Technology Conference brings together the best in researchers, acousticians, and engineers to address the current and future audio needs of the cinema, television, and internet (online).

This will include such issues as:

Acoustical design and performance of the modern motion picture theater

Playback of film as well as live event broadcasts in a cinema

Immersive sound and psychoacoustics

Reproduction of immersive sound in home theater applications

Reproduction of multi-channel audio using lesser numbers of speaker locations

Testing and alignment practices for cinemas

Dialog intelligibility in the theaters

Speech intelligibility and microphone design

Production sound immersive audio recording

Loudness control and OSHA/European Standards

Lossless coding of immersive sound for low bandwidth channels

Immersive sound using headphone technologies

Dialog intelligibility from TV broadcasts

Loudspeaker performance from all-in-one television receivers

Multichannel simulation from minimum speaker locations

Target audience: Motion Picture & Television engineering personnel and management, movie theater chain owners and tech staff, manufacturers (loudspeakers, headphones, processors, televisions, computers & associated devices), movie studio and TV station engineering, acousticians, theater designers, members of international Standards organizations, satellite transmission engineers. With the Conference being held in a real movie theatre, the participants are encouraged to present actual demonstrations of their cinema technology in situ. This first-ever conference will bring together the leading names in sound to hear and discuss the requirements of the creative community and the technology possibilities available to the market. A roadmap for implementation that applies our best science to the reproduction of audio, as well as streamlining the production process, is the planned output from this Conference.